Sign of Changing Times

Snyder Sign employees guide the new SmartBank sign into place Sunday morning.

Workers with Snyder Signs replaced the old Cornerstone Bank sign with a new one on Sunday morning.

Cornerstone announced last year that it had merged with SmartBank, which has headquarters in Pigeon Forge.

Cornerstone is the sixth largest bank in the Chattanooga area, with more than 100 employees in its five Hamilton County offices. When the two banks merged it was announced that Cornerstone would be led by Barry Watson, who has been in the banking business locally for more than three decades.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.